The United Kingdom was recently hit by a massive ransomware attack that crippled more than 20 percent of hospitals and disabled systems in approximately 74 countries.

The attack appears to have been inadvertently stopped by a 22-year-old computer security researcher in England, according to various news outlets.

Following the attack, many have commented, wondering what could be done to combat this type of threat.

Ransomware is described as a "type of malicious software that infects and restricts access to a computer until a ransom is paid", according to the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT).

A Software engineer, Quincy Larson, talked with ABC News about how ransomware is usually spread through users' emails.

"If you are going to be infected by ransomware, it will happen when you get an email or some other form of message that's asking you to download and run it, and when that file runs, then usually, the attacker will encrypt your hard drive, or encrypt part of your hard drive so that your computer is still operable and you can continue to use it, but you can't access all your files," Larson told ABC News.

"It's absolutely critical that you install updates to your operating system and to all your software as they become available," Larson added. "One of the reasons why you download the updates is not just for new features but it's also for additional security."